RADIO AS A TOOL FOR COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT: A STUDY OF KALUBALE ON FREEDOM RADIO, KANO

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RADIO AS A TOOL FOR COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT: A STUDY OF KALUBALE ON FREEDOM RADIO, KANO

Abstract:

Radio is considered to be a very powerful tool for engendering community empowerment due to its capacity to cover wide audience and its easy and accessible nature. However, despite these qualities, empowerment programmes aired through radio often do not achieve their aim because media houses fail to include the target audience in all stages of designing messages intended for them. The aim of the study is to enhance Kalubale programme through effective participatory communication for community empowerment. The study seeks to determine the level through which audience are carried along when coming up with topics for Kalubale, a radio programme aired on Freedom Fm Kano; to evaluate the role of Kalubale in Fagge D2 and Mekiya communities of Fagge and Gabasawa local government areas of Kano state; to identify the factors that limit Kalubale programme from achieving community enpowerpment in FaggeD2 and Mekiya communities and to suggest ways through which the programme can be improved. The study is anchored on the Theory of Dialogic Communication by Paulo Freire(1970) who proposed that empowering people should not be seen as dissemination of information but rather participatory in all stages emanating from the people in the atmosphere of equality and respect for one another. The study employed both the qualitative and the quantitative research methods. Data for this study were generated from Questionnaire, Focused Group Discussion (FGD), Key Informant Interview (KII) and Documentary Observation. The targeted populations for the study are: Fagge D2 in Fagge Local government and Mekiya community in Gabasawa local government areas in Kano state. The findings of the study revealed that the target audiences are not consulted before designing topics for the programme. It was also discovered that the programme is aired during the period when the target audience are busy and as a result, they miss out of the programme because it is a live programme. Findings also revealed that the feedback mechanism is poor. Audience participation is low because Short Message Service (SMS) is the mode through which audience participate in the programme. It is recommended that audiences’ opinions be sampled before deciding on the topics to be discussed. The programme should be replayed so that audience who missed it when it was aired live will benefit from it. Other modes through which audience can participate and contribute to the programme should be devised aside SMS.

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of Study

Communication is central to all forms of human endeavours. Its centrality arises from man’s inevitable need to interact and share information in a bid to ensure societal growth and development. From time immemorial, man communicates his inner most feelings by constant interaction with his environment. FAO (1994) stresses the importance of communication as key to human development. Communication is a process of sharing information, news, views, ideas, feeling, sentiments and anxieties between two or more individuals or group of people.

Odunlami, (2005) avers that communication is a crucial index in development. This implies that central to development is communication. Development is a multifaceted and normative concept meaning different things to different people Adebayo (1997). According to Adebayo (1997), development is a rapid and sustained rise in real output per head and an attendant change in technological, economic and demographic characteristics in a society. Yahaya (2003) summaries development to mean a trend in technologies, organizations, activities and values of a society. From his point of view, a people is said to be developed there is growth in their economy equality in income and an increase in technological advancement.

Contrary to the above, more detail is given to those intangible development which although cannot be seen or touched but can be felt through actions and expressed in change of behaviours and attitudes Anaeto and Anaeto (2010). Development is therefore a generic concept which is interpreted contextually depending on the subject of discourse. It is seen here in relation to empowerment of people to full capacity. Okunna (2002) sees development as a process social change that should impact the lives of people in a positive way, thus giving them better living conditions.

The World Bank (2009) sees development as empowerment of people and a process of increasing the capacity of individuals or groups to make choice into desired actions and outcomes. From the arguments made by Okunna (2002) and the World Bank (2009), development within the context of this study is the empowerment of people to make choices and take actions on positive attitudes. For development to have reached its apex, individuals or communities need to be strengthened in the following:

  1. Knowledge power; an understanding of how to cope with development
  2. Resource power; access to and influence over resources to deal with development
  • Positional power; it entails the capacity to negotiate rights and entitlements, and fulfill responsibilities and obligations to cope with development.
  1. Personal power; personal power is said to be achieved when an individual or a group

has a sense of self-esteem and self worth. This is when there is a realization and motivation to claim knowledge, resource and positional power to cope with development The need to empowering people with the right information to take actions and change their attitudes and behaviours instigated the use of the mass media to make that dream come to materialization. The exposure to the mass media ushered in the concept of the diffusion of innovation developed by Everest Rogers which was solely focused on how new practices, ideas and concepts can be widely spread. Melkote (1991:57) summarizes the role of the mass media in the world of development during the 1950s and 1960s as follows:

The mass media were thought to have powerful uniform and direct influence on individuals…the mass media were considered as magic suppliers of the development benefits of the Third world nations. The strengths of the mass media lay in their one-way, top-down simultaneous and wide dissemination. And since the elites in every nation were required to modernize others in population, the control of the prestigious mass media by them served their economic and political interests…Administrators, researcher and field workers sincerely believe in the great power of the mass media as harbingers of modernization influences Radio as a medium of communication is one of the blessings of the 20th century technology.

Without doubt, it plays a key role in development as it is considered one of the oldest and most reliable media for information. Its uses are broad spanning literacy gaps, geographic distances, language barriers and perhaps remains an affordable source to a large majority of the world’s population. The above characteristics of radio account for some of the basic reasons why it has been adopted as a medium for communication, information transfer to instigate social change, impact knowledge and the exchange of ideas. This dynamism has sustained the relevance of radio in the present explosion of information technology and the advent of the Internet.

Radio is widely used not only because it is cheap or portable, but also due to its significantly wide reach. Moemeka (1981:33-34) describes radio as: “the only medium that reaches every corner of the country. Radio has immediacy because messages can get to the farthest parts of the country just as the event is happening. It has the personal touch that lend urgency to change” Similarly, Myer,(2007:1) avers that:

Radio is the most widespread mass‐medium in the developing world. It is affordable, easy to use and ubiquitous. The airwaves in Africa, Latin America and Asia are now buzzing with thousands of channels bringing news, music, chat, sport, education and discussion to local people in their own languages, in a convenient format, when and where they want it. Small battery‐operated transistors often costing no more than $10 US dollars can be bought in almost any market‐place or corner shop…Not only are radio sets portable and affordable but they overcome the problem of illiteracy and electrification…

In the light of the above, radio is regarded as the dominant mass medium in Africa with the widest coverage and highest audiences in contrast to other media for mass communication. This of course is one of the potentials that give radio an edge above other media. Another argument raised by Myers (2007) in relation to the radio is that even people who are not lettered can take advantage of it as it broadcasts in their own mother tongue.

Nigeria is laced with a lot of developmental issues ranging from poverty, hunger, unemployment, inequality, increase in child mortality and a host of other vices. MDGs (2007).In a bid to reduce and curb these nuances, the MDGs were launched to bring about sustainable development. To further help in realizing these goals, the mass media most especially the radio were used to send information to people owing to its capacity to reach a large audience at the same time.

In response to the above, several radio programmes like “Oga Landlord” on Queen, “Gboluyo” on Radio Lagos, have been aired in order to inform people in various capacities such as sanitation, reproductive health, education, improving agricultural knowledge and other social vices so as to change their attitudes and embrace positive ones. For instance, the radio programme “Don Makiyaya a ruga” aimed at mobilizing and sensitizing nomadic pastoralists to appreciate the value of modern education and to encourage nomads to contribute meaningfully towards the education of their children. Interestingly, El Nafaty (1999) carried out a study in Kaduna state to assess the effectiveness of the radio programme, Don Makiyaya a Ruga (For the Nomads in their Homesteads) in increasing school enrolment among the nomadic herds’ families in Kaduna state. In the survey, about 83% of his respondents attested that the radio programme has encouraged them to enroll their children in nomadic schools.

In like manner, the potency of radio in enhancing gender mainstreaming, women empowerment and as well as giving women voice cannot be over emphasized as Yahaya (2003) equally examined the use of radio on empowerment from a gender perspective. In a survey involving 376 women farmers in Kaduna and Katsina states, he discovered that women farmers and especially women in purdah (seclusion) utilized radio more than any other mass medium.

Freedom Radio in Kano state was born with the following objectives:

  1. To give voice to the people of Kano state by informing, educating and entertaining them through varieties of its programmes
  2. To be independent from government radio that promotes national unity through its programmes
  • To empower people in Kano state to take responsibilities for their lives and their communities
  1. To change attitudes of people in Kano state for positive ones

To that effect, Kalubale programme on Freedom radio was designed for people in the state to be empowered on social issues such as gender inequalities, community responsibility, information on reproductive and family health, agricultural related issues, and political issues among others.

However, despite the qualities attributed to the radio, all the nuances mentioned earlier are still prevalent in Fagge D2 and Mekiya communities of Fagge and Gabassawa local government areas of Kano state. One of the reasons for this as observed in the MacBride report (1980) that most communication are aimed at persuading the audience on the benefits of development and the sacrifices they need to make to get it. In like manner, media practitioners are too profit driven and as such design programmes without the target audience in view, (Oso,Soola and Pate: 2012).

1.2    Statement of the Research Problem

It is observed that even though there is a worldwide view of the efficacy of radio in community empowerment, the result is still far below expectations. Several problems are however associated with the use of radio as a tool for development in Nigeria. The major cracks on the wall in respect to radio not living up to its expectation is rooted in the fact that most media houses are profit- conscious; hence, the content of their messages are designed in a way that will yield more profit to them . In essence, there is no baseline research to enable producers penetrate the masses as to come out with their own issues. In this regard therefore, the target audience lack ownership of the programme designed as there is failure on the part of the producer to carry the masses along from inception. Little wonder Moemeka (1981:5) laments that “one of the problems encountered with radio centers in Nigeria and the lack of response to the well-researched programmes was due to the fact that there was little contact between the staff preparing the programmes and the audience, and a lack of local involvement to identify needs”.

The media is mandated to disseminate information and opinions impartially in a manner encouraging meaningful and articulate discussions of issues of public interest. Ironically, Mboho and Bata (2012:197) lamented that this is not yet evident because of the failure on the part of media practitioners to include the target audience in the process of designing messages aimed at addressing their own needs.

Kalubale is packaged for empowering people in Kano State by giving them timely information and tips to better improve their lives through different discussions ranging from health, gender, economy, politics but the result is less than expected. The reality is that there is often limited consultation between the producers of the programme and the people whom the message is meant for and as such, it is less-participatory. Programmes are just thought of by the producers who already have a pre-conceived notion of what they feel will benefit the people. Radio which is known as a carrier of development initiatives can actually bring these dreams to realization due to its qualities and characteristics. However, despite efforts put by the Kalubale team to empower people on social change, traces of the nuances are still found in Fagge D2 and Mekiya communities in Kano state. Media practitioners fail to realize that dialogical communication is critical to development. It is obvious that media houses are still tied to the apron of the traditional or the dominant paradigm of communication that is in itself top-down by nature. This has however created a gap in communication which has often been ignored by media practitioners. Therein lies the problem which this research intends to articulate.

1.3 Aim and Objectives of the Study

The aim of this study is to enhance Kalubale programme through effective participatory communication for community empowerment.

The specific objectives of the study include:

  1. To determine the level to which Fagge D2 and Mekiya communities participate in generating topics on Kalubale radio programme.
  2. To evaluate the effectiveness of Kalubale in communicating empowerment in Fagge D2 and Mekiya communities
  3. To identify the factors that limit Kalubale programme from achieving development in Fagge D2 and Mekiya communities
  4. To suggest ways through which Kalubale programme can be improved

1.4 Research Questions

  1. To what extent are people of Fagge D2 and Mekiya communities carried along in generating topics on Kalubale radio programme?
  2. What are the roles of Kalubale in community empowerment in Fagge D2 and Mekiya communities?
  3. What are the factors affecting and limiting the efficiency of Kalubale programme in Fagge D2 and Mekiya communities?
  4. How can Kalubale Programme be improved?

1.5 Scope of the Study

The study limited its scope to Kalubale programme on Freedom Radio located in Kano state. The programme started in 2014, and is geared towards the development of the people. It is a live discussion programme aired from Monday to Thursday by 3:00pm – 3:45pm discussing variety of topics that include: health, socio-economic, political and a host of others. The study focused on the level to which audience participate in the programme, explored the processes through which topics for each episodes are generated in Kalubale programme. The researcher focused on one community each from two local government areas in Kano state and these communities are Fagge D2 and Mekiya communities of Fagge and Gabasawa local government areas.

1.6 Significance of the Study

The study is important because radio reaches larger audience and it is easily operated and cheaper compared to the television and the newspaper. This implies that timely information on Kalubale programme will reach its audience and audience can easily access the programme irrespective of where they are.

This study recognizes the importance of participation in communicating empowerment because it constitutes a critical part of sustainable development. Therefore, the study will help give the producer and presenter of Kalubale programme more insights on the importance of audience opinions when coming up with topics of discussion. The essence of it is to ensure that audience needs are priotized and discussed. More so, the programme will have lasting effects on the audiences as they constitute in generating issues that will be discussed.

In addition to the above, the study will save time and resources on the part of Kalubale team on what topic to be discussed because audience preference will determine the topics to be discussed. Therefore, both human and financial resources will be channeled to the appropriate place the outcome of this study will provide a workable solution that will help the team of Kalubale of Freedom Radio Kano State to enhance the programme for effective community empowerment. Furthermore, findings from this study will add to the existing literature on participation, communication and empowerment and will serve as relevant material for further research in any similar area of study.

 

RADIO AS A TOOL FOR COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT: A STUDY OF KALUBALE ON FREEDOM RADIO, KANO

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